No Heart So True
by HardlyFatal
Summary: The Hound joins the Starks against the Boltons, and gets a second- and then a third- chance with Sansa. Begins just before the Battle of the Bastards.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I'm writing this at the same time as my original book, so if there are pauses between publishing chapters, that's why.**

 **Chapter 1**

"Hm, what's that?" Jon was at the window, and his brow furrowed as he squinted into the distance to where a lone horseman was making his way toward the castle. Sansa joined him at the window. The horseman was still far, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that looked familiar to her.

Jon went below, to see what the newcomer wanted, while Sansa tried to remember where she had seen this man, how she had known him in the past.

They were not letting him within the keep walls; not now, so close to the battle, when one false move, one act of sabotage, could end them all. Sansa leaned out the window, straining to hear.

And when the rumble of his voice made its way to her, she choked on an indrawn breath, and ran from the room.

It had been a hell of a journey for Sandor, but at last it was over.

Upon leaving the Quiet Isle, he'd decided he needed a focus for his energies. The religious life clearly was not meant for him, and he might as well return to what he knew best: battle.

The townpeople of Stoney Sept, where he'd gone after killing the men who'd murdered Ray and the others, had spoken of nothing but the upcoming war between the Houses Bolton and Stark. They said that Ramsay Bolton was paying his sellswords a stag per month each, and since that rotten little wolf-whelp had robbed him of his last coppers while he lay dying, Sandor could use the coin.

He steadfastly ignored the pang of his conscience at the idea of fighting against the Starks; the younger girl had been a monumental pain in the arse, but the elder…

Ah, the elder…

Upon arrival in Winterfell, he learned that she'd been married to the Bolton bastard, then escaped to the North and her brother, also a bastard. And that this burgeoning war was to get her back. Seemed to Sandor that if a woman would rather leap off a castle wall than stay wed to you, perhaps you should look for a more amenable wife.

The idea of Sansa as a wife— anyone's wife— made him grind his molars. He tried to picture it, a home presided over by her, children mothered by her, and it made a queer feeling tighten in his chest, quickly and brutally banished.

Once he discovered the purpose of the war, all interest in fighting for the Boltons fled. He'd offered to free her from one gilded cage; he'd be buggered if he'd help lock her into another one. But they'd soon learned he was in town, few men being as large and disfigured as he, and sent a messenger to fetch him for an audience.

He considered just leaving Winterfell, but was curious to learn how much his reputation for prowess and ferocity was worth to the Boltons. If the bog-standard fighters were getting a stag a month, a warrior of his caliber should be worth at least five.

Not only was their offer insultingly low— as if he should feel privileged to be allowed the honor of fighting for them, but that crazy fuck, Ramsay, had made him uneasy. Sandor had worked for an unhinged monarch before; he'd seen first-hand how it would end in naught but chaos and flame. He'd be damned if he got himself into another pile of shit because he followed a man whose mind was too weak to rule.

He'd left that night, under cover of darkness, because he wouldn't put it past Ramsay to order his ambush if he'd made it known he would not be accepting their coin.

 _Well_ , he thought, _let_ _'s see how the other side looks._

As he progressed north, he listened. He always listened. The townspeople and the soldiers talked about the Starks, about how Jon Snow had risen from the dead, and how Sansa Stark was trying to scrape together the last vestiges of her family's power to mount a resistance to the Boltons, and put an end to Ramsay's lunacy once and for all.

Sansa. _Little Bird._ It was almost incomprehensible to him how that meek little beauty, always so terrified of Joffrey, of Sandor, of her own shadow, could have found the courage and strength to head this level of insurrection.

There'd been hints of it, that courage, that strength, when he'd known her in King's Landing. The foolish spirit that had prodded her to needle Joffrey, how she'd confronted Sandor himself, and the grim determination he'd seen on her lovely face when she'd gone to push the king off the passageway to the ground far below.

No, maybe he should not be all that surprised.

Almost a week after he'd left Winterfell, Castle Black loomed on the grim horizon, and glad he was of it, because his supplies had run out the day before, and there was nothing more to feed his horse. He drew up to the sentinels at the gate. "You looking for mercenaries?"

"Happens we are," said one, and shouted to someone over his shoulder to fetch Jon Snow. The other began the slow business of cranking open the massive doors to the keep, and Sandor sneered at how lax their security was. Were they _trying_ to lose? He'd have words with Snow about this.

He ambled in on his horse, in no hurry at all. He could hear the whispers all round: "That's the Hound!" and "He's the only one could ever take his brother!" and, of course, "Look at that scar!"

Snow presented himself at the top of the stairs, taking his measure from a distance. Sandor saw the moment the boy noticed his face, and made the connection, and felt a brief spurt of pride— even now, after all this time, he was known. Good. He didn't mind not having to prove himself all over again.

"Here to sell your sword?" Snow asked upon reaching him. "You'd be a great help."

"Depends on what you're paying," Sandor replied, though he had decided, as he rode north, that he'd fight for the Starks no matter how shite their wages. He could never have gone through with fighting against his little bird, even had he joined the Boltons. He'd failed her too much already, and would not betray her again.

…when had he begun thinking of her as _his_?

Disgusted with himself, Sandor spat into the snow and grimaced. Truth was, he'd always thought of her as his. His to guard, his to frighten into being more careful, his to protect. Maybe this way, by fighting for her cause, he could protect her again.

There was a commotion at the head of the stairs; damned if that big blonde bitch who'd tossed him off a cliff weren't standing there, trying to block the doorway and keep someone in.

"Brienne, let me pass!" cried the voice that he heard on odd occasions, when he was sleeping peaceful, when he felt safe enough to dream, and suddenly he couldn't breathe.

"Lady Sansa, you cannot go down!"

They had her there, in the very theater of war, instead of hidden in some backwater where no one could touch her? How could these fools even imagine they might win? If not for her, Sandor would have turned his mount around and left, right then, gone to find a boat to Essos to live in a hermit's refuge.

"Sansa?" The name slipped out of him before he could catch it back or swallow it down. Nearby, Jon shot him a look of surprise.

A mighty shove, and she broke past her guard: kissed by fire, they called those with red hair, and wasn't she a picture, her eyes as blue as ever, her cheeks flushed pink and all that hair tumbling down. She gazed down at him, still trying to fight free of restrictive arms.

"Brienne, let me go!"

Sandor was off his horse before he knew what he was doing. In one second, he was past Snow and across the keep yard; in another, his sword was in his hand and he felt his blood rise as it always did either before a battle, or when he was face-to-face with Sansa. Every man in the yard had done likewise, and he now stood in a ring of naked steel, all points aimed in his direction.

"Release her," he barked at Brienne, ready to kill them all to free Sansa. "Release her _now_."

The big woman froze and stared at him, incredulous. Sansa shimmied free of her restraints in a move Sandor was sure he'd revisit in his mind on many a cold evening, and dashed down the stairs toward him. He couldn't imagine what she was doing, what she was thinking to come to him that way, like she'd missed him—

She flung herself at him, her face pressed heedlessly against his battered chestplate, and his left arm came around her waist in a protective, greedy reflex he couldn't control, even as he held his sword ready. How many times had he wondered what she'd feel like, against him? She was soft, so soft, and smelled clean, and he still wanted her with the same fierceness as ever. But she could never want him back, not him, not a old scarred honorless wreck of a man—

Except that she was looking up at him now, and the expression on her face was gladness, was welcome, was a revelation.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her tone one of delight and wonder, as if he were an unexpected gift she'd never even dreamed of receiving. "Are you here to join us?"

The _depends on what you_ _'re paying_ formed again on his lips, but in the end, all he said was, "Yes." Yes, he was joining them— _her_. Yes, he would fight for her. He would make her queen, and protect her, and yes. Yes.

Sansa gave his arm a little squeeze. "Come inside," she said. "You're cold and hungry. I'll arrange a bath for you, and clean clothes."

Feeling dazed, Sandor allowed her to usher him into the keep, past the stunned faces of her brother and guard and all the rest.


	2. Chapter 2

_Sansa_

After their new arrival had been hustled off for a hot bath and a meal, Sansa thought to finish mending one of Jon's tunics as a way of keeping herself occupied. That time of day, between dinner and supper, most everyone was busy with their daily habits, and she was alone in the great hall.

 _Not so great,_ she thought with a tiny smile, surveying her dingy surroundings. Low-ceilinged, small-windowed, with no paneling or drapery to soften the stone floor and walls, it was a grim and unwelcoming place. She tried to settle in on the wooden bench at the long table, but after an hour of placing clumsy stitches she gave up and paced before the feeble fire struggling to warm the desolate room.

Seeing the Hound again had Sansa reeling, thrown back to her days as Joffrey's betrothed, when Sandor had seemed to dog her every step, when he had rescued her and rescued her and rescued her. He had been often on her mind in the intervening days: what he had been doing after leaving her in King's Landing? Was he still drinking too much wine? Had he really kissed her, that last night on her bed in the dark, when her eyes had been closed and she'd wished, oh, she'd wished…

At first, she'd dismissed such wonderings as panicked flights of fancy after a moment of duress, but when she'd dreamt of him coming to her bed as her husband, she'd had to admit to herself that he had been far more to her than just a flight of fancy. He'd taught her the reality of her delusions of nobility, of how beauty above could hide foulness below, and how the greatest chivalry could hide within the most unknightly figure imaginable.

It had only been more recently, after hearing her aunt's noisy wailing while coupling with Petyr Baelish, and then the minstrel offering to make Sansa sing likewise, that she had put another meaning to Sandor's repeated urgings to sing for him. And in spite of everything, in spite of all the fear and pain, in spite of Ramsay, she would remember Sandor's rough deep voice commanding her to sing, and feel a wild throbbing between her legs.

She didn't think she'd ever be able to sing, and not think of that. Of Sandor in her bed, making her sing and sing and sing…

"Milady. A word, if it please you."

Sansa blinked and started, jostled from her thoughts by Brienne, standing rigidly at her side.

"Of course, Brienne." The other woman looked concerned. "What's wrong?"

"I have deep misgivings about having the Hound fight with us, milady. He was a Lannister guard for many years—"

"Six," Sansa murmured. She'd asked Shae, once. "Not so very many."

"—and is known for his ferocity in battle—"

"Which makes him an exceedingly fine ally."

Brienne's lips compressed before she forged on. "—and therefore I think it likely that he is here either as a double agent for the Lannisters, or possibly the Boltons, or…" Here, she permitted herself a dramatic pause for effect. "…or he has nefarious purposes of his own." She scowled darkly. "I don't like how he looks at you."

"'A hound will die for you, but never lie to you'," Sansa replied automatically, steadfastly ignoring any reference to how he might look at her to repeat the phrase he'd told her once, what seemed so long ago. "Sandor's no liar. He's rough, and possibly mad, but he's no liar. He would not play me false."

Brienne stared at her, then, slowly, past her, and Sansa felt a shiver across her flesh, an exquisite awareness that raised every tiny hair on her neck.

And she knew he was at the doorway behind her, and had heard every word.

Her guard's intense gaze flickered back to her lady, a wordless inquiry: should she leave them alone? Sansa met her eyes, nodded, so Brienne compressed her lips even further and departed the room.

Sansa shivered again, unable to turn and face him, so she focused on one stone in the wall that was a paler gray than the others, focused until her eyes burned. He did not speak or move; he hardly seemed to breathe.

But then he stepped closer to her, and she could feel the heat of him all down her back. Fabric draped around her, and she saw that he'd put his cloak over her shoulders.

"You're cold," he murmured, that rasp of a voice that dragged over her skin like rough silk.

She wasn't, but was not going to tell him so. She gathered folds of the cloak in her hands, pulled it closer. He hadn't worn it long enough to imprint his scent on it yet. A shame, that.

"I still have the cloak you gave me in King's Landing," she told him. "Or a piece of it, at least."

It hadn't been practical to keep the entire cloak; made for a man the Hound's considerable size, it was big enough to cover a horse. She'd salvaged as much of it as she could, the largest part without any rips or rents. She reached into the neck of her gown and produced a folded square of white wool, not large but neatly hemmed all round.

"I washed it the best I could. I didn't want to keep the blood and soot on it." She turned and held it out for him to see.

His eyes, those gray eyes of his, like old steel, flicked down to the square of cloth for the barest second before returning to her face. "What's in the corners?"

Sansa smiled at the handiwork she hadn't been able to resist adding to each corner.

"Dogs," she said. "Black ones. I thought to dye it yellow, so it would match your heraldry, but it didn't seem right." She lifted her eyes to his. "It was white when you wore it, and when you left it with me. I thought it should stay that way."

Still he said nothing. It was impossible to discern what he was thinking; his face was as blank and impassive as a stone statue.

"I did lie to you, once," he said suddenly. "When I told you that killing is the sweetest thing."

Sansa couldn't move, could hardly breathe. He said no more, but she understood.

"I think," she said, very gently, "that you meant it at the time. So it's not quite a lie. You just changed your mind." She cocked her head a little to the side. "It's fine. We all change our minds. I certainly have. Many times."

She said no more, but he understood; she could see it in those red-black eyes.

Davos entered the room, then, and the moment was lost. She offered the older man a polite smile.

"Your brother wants to discuss some matters," Davos said. "He'll be joining us presently."

Sansa took her seat on the bench and took up Jon's tunic once more. Sandor took up a position just behind and to the left of her, putting her in mind of how he'd guarded Joffrey: close, watchful, but unobtrusive. He had excellent instincts, she thought.

One by one, the others entered the room: Jon, Edd, Brienne with her omnipresent shadow, Tormund. A squire arrived with the castle's ghastly ale, passing out mugs which everyone took more out of habit, and to have something to do with their hands, than out of any genuine thirst or fondness.

"I imagine we have many questions for each other," Jon said, ever the brave one, ready to plunge forth.

* * *

 _Sandor_

Sandor put down his flagon of the most disgusting ale he'd ever had the misfortune to put in his mouth and aimed a flinty glare at Sansa's half-brother.

"Why," he asked, his voice calm but scathing, "the fuck is she here?"

Snow's spine snapped straight, almost audibly. "You know why we're here."

"No," and there was a world of condescension in his voice, "why is _she_ here? When she should be somewhere far from the battlefield, somewhere safe?" His scornful gaze swept over Snow, over Brienne, over Davos, over the odd red-haired Wildling who stared at Brienne like he were starving to death and she a juicy haunch of beef, to the girl herself, luminous as ever in spite of the bruise-like circles of exhaustion beneath her eyes.

"Don't talk about me as if I'm not here," Sansa said sharply, her voice a blade as she twisted around to glare at him. "They're doing this for me, in my name. They could die. For me. The least I can do is be here with them, when they do."

"So you can all die together?" he sneered, lifted his mug, remembered how foul its contents, put it back down. "And your family's birthright with you?"

"Ramsay's got our little brother," she told him. "I have no faith that he'll let Rickon live, whether we win or lose. Rickon might already be dead, in fact. Bran, too. I'm all we can count on, and if we lose here—"

"If we lose here, at least you'll still be alive, can still try again."

"With what army?" she shouted, standing, her face reddening. "With what supplies? What allies? We have scraped together everything we have. Who and what you see here is _it_. This is all we have, all we are. If we lose this battle, it is over. Everything is over."

Sandor opened his mouth to argue, but Sansa plowed ahead, over him.

"And if we lose, if I don't die in the battle, I'll be killing myself shortly after it's over, because I will never return to Ramsay." Her hands were fisted in the cloak he'd draped over her, but they might as well have been clenched around his heart. She stood there, silent and pale, and there was so much she wasn't saying.

He slammed the mug onto the table. The edges of Sandor's vision darkened as a hideous thought crawled out of the murk of his mind and scraped free to bang on the walls of his skull. He shut his eyes, as if that could somehow block out the image behind them.

" _What did he do to you?"_

He knew he sounded barbaric, like an animal, snarling like a wild thing, but oh, gods… no, let it not be what he thought—

He fought to calm his breathing for long moments, then opened his eyes to find Sansa shooing the others from the room and shutting the door behind them.

"He did nothing but assert his marital rights as my husband." She turned back to him, stepped right up to him as if he weren't terrifying to look at and she weren't in the least afraid of him. Her voice was distant, like she were speaking to him from across a deep valley. She clamped her jaw tightly, then, and averted her gaze. She didn't want him to see, but he knew. He knew.

He drew his sword, chest heaving like a bellows. Sansa didn't even twitch, just watched him. Her calm acceptance of the violation she'd suffered at Ramsay's hands pushed Sandor over the edge he'd been teetering on. Overcome, he vented his frustrations on the worn old table in the middle of the room, hacking it smaller and smaller until it was mere flinders on the flagstones.

The sword clattered to the floor from his hand, and he hung back his head as despair wracked him. "I knew I should have taken you with me, should have just tossed you over my shoulder and left with you. I'd have kept you safe, you'd never have been—"

He couldn't even say it. He'd tried the best he could to protect her from Joffrey, but failed when it mattered the most. How he'd live with himself, he'd never know.

A soft touch on his hand, and he opened his eyes once more. Sansa stood beside him, her little hands cupping his big rough paw.

"Thank you," she whispered, staring down at where they touched. "For all you did for me before, in King's Landing, and now." She glanced at the former table. "I've never been able to… act out my fury. I've wanted to." She looked up, now, her eyes as blue as summer. "I've wanted to destroy the _world_ , since… Joffrey. Since Ramsay. I couldn't. I'm not strong enough. But you are. You're strong enough to do it for me."

Sandor began to tremble, just a little. In that moment, he _felt_ strong enough to destroy the world, then rebuild it anew, just for her.

"Will you do it for me?" Miraculously, impossibly, she brought his hand up, touched her lips to his fingers, brushing over the scars decorating his knuckles with knotted white lines. Was it in gratitude, for past acts? In supplication, for future ones? Sandor did not know, would never know, did not care.

"You were my shield, once," she continued. "Will you be my shield again?"

He wanted to say, _I never stopped being your shield, I was always your shield,_ but it wasn't true. He'd left her, and she'd had no shield at all when she most needed one. He'd not be making that mistake again.

The door creaked open, and Snow poked his head in. Above him, Brienne was doing the same. Their faces were a perfect picture of incredulity as they took in the pile of splinters where before had been a table, and Sansa holding the hand of the ugliest imaginable warrior.

"It depends on if you can meet my price." His voice was hoarse from the growling, before. They all re-entered the room, cautiously, quietly, afraid to disturb the half-feral dog.

"What is your price?" Snow asked. His face was guarded, tight; he had few resources left to spare for an exorbitant mercenary fee.

Sandor glanced at Sansa. She had released his hand, stepped away, but still he felt her on his skin. The heat of her, hands and lips, had burned him raw as actual flames never could.

"Her," he said. "My price is Sansa."

Brienne sucked in a breath, and her hand came to rest on the fancy gold-hilted sword at her hip.

"What do you mean?" Snow demanded. "Sansa… as your liege? You want to be her personal guard?"

"Her man. Her husband." Sandor felt his face heat, ashamed to be embarrassed, at revealing so much to these strangers, knowing his reputation and their opinion of him. He was not a forthcoming man, could hardly tell what his own thoughts and feelings meant. All he knew is that Sansa was his to protect, had always been that; that he had failed her once but never would again; that he would die defending her. To do that, he needed to have the right to be at her side always, at all hours of the day and night.

"She's already got a husband." Snow looked like he wanted to spit in disgust. "She's married to Ramsay."

"She'll soon be a widow." It was not so much projection as promise, and he would make it a fact. He'd never meant anything so much in his life.

"Absolutely not," Brienne snapped. "You cannot imagine that—"

"Yes."

Sansa's single word made her guard fall silent in shock. Then: "Milady…."

"Sandor has presented his terms. I have accepted them." Sansa turned to face him. "After the battle, if we both survive, and Ramsay is dead, I will marry you. Right there on the battlefield, if you wish it."

Had she always been this tall? This determined? She'd grown much in the time they'd been apart.

He'd never imagined that his quaking little bird could sing so loudly.


	3. Chapter 3

_Sandor - The morning of the battle_

The next day, Snow and Brienne were still disgruntled about the payment he had demanded, and confused about Sansa's capitulation to it. Why would she agree to wed this uncouth, hideous, scarred beast of a man? What if he hurt her, as Ramsay had? They had no way of knowing how she was the fatal weakness he'd never been able to purge, how he'd been helpless to keep from protecting her, even from herself.

They were also disgruntled by his flat refusal to fight on the battlefield, or down in the keep yard, or anywhere but at Sansa's side. They felt he would be an asset in their front line. He felt they were very stupid.

"How," he said with grim, deteriorating patience, "am I supposed to protect her when I'm nowhere near her?"

"You'll protect her by defeating the army of her enemy," Brienne said in clipped, icy tones. "We need every able-bodied man out there, not sitting in here by the fire."

Davos took a deep breath and tried to be placating. "We just think your talents will be wasted in the keep, here. A warrior of your caliber can do the work of twenty lesser men. You are a very valuable resource that should not be squandered."

"And if I fall?" Sandor challenged him. "Who else can keep Sansa as safe as me? I've not seen you fight, nor Snow or the Wildling, so I don't know how good any of you are. I know _she_ can do it—" he jerked his head in Brienne's direction, causing the woman to startle at the inadvertent compliment— "because I'm one of the best fighters on this continent, and she beat _me_. So I'll compromise in this way only: either I stay here, with Sansa, or Brienne does."

Snow huffed out, exasperated, and turned away to pace back and forth, searching for the right words that would change Sandor's mind. Brienne just narrowed her eyes, contemplating.

"What if," Sansa began, "Sandor or Brienne stayed with the forces to remain in the keep yard? If the Bolton forces make it past the main body of soldiers, they will still have to contend with those here. It will be like protecting me, but without sitting idle as I chew all my fingernails off."

"And if we fall?" Sandor gritted out. "What then?"

"If you fall, it hardly matters if I have a guard in the room with me. If you fall, our cause is lost, and I'll be dead by my own hand in short order."

"If Brienne stays back, so will I," rumbled Tormund from his corner.

Brienne shot him a look of pure irritation and reached up to rake her fingers through her hair, looking like annoyance was goading her to tear it out in handfuls.

Sandor liked his idea— if he couldn't be there, then having Brienne and the Wildling madman to protect Sansa would not be terrible.

"Done," he said. Brienne sliced a look at Sandor that should have slit his throat, but Tormund just grinned wildly, as if she'd accepted his offer of marriage.

"I'm glad that's decided," said Davos from the window, "because it appears the time has come to fight."

Sansa came to stand beside him; the others crowded up behind. There, amassing in the distance, was a black line crawling along the distant horizon, ever shifting and thickening as more joined its ranks.

The Boltons. Five thousand of them, apparently. This was going to be a slaughter, and no mistake. Sandor pressed against his betrothed— his betrothed!— a mite closer than strictly necessary, but if this were as near as he'd ever get to her, if he died in the upcoming battle as he suspected he would, he wanted to at least have this one fleeting impression of her when he went.

Brienne sighed heavily. "I'll go get my armor on."

Tormund followed her out the door. "I'll help you."

"There's no need," she told him impatiently.

"Be that as it may," was the Wildling's placid response, his voice fading as they left the room.

"They're even more unlikely a couple than you two," Snow said lightly as he turned from the window, but his brow was creased with concern. "About that… Sansa, you are sure?"

Sandor held his breath, waiting for her answer.

"Yes, Jon. I'm sure."

He nodded and left them, Davos on his heels. Alone, they faced each other. Sandor had no idea what to say to her. He was not a man good with words, only with killing.

"Why do you want to marry me?" Sansa asked suddenly.

If ever there were a time for honesty, this was it. "I want you."

She did not appear offended by his bluntness. "Enough to marry me?"

"Yes." His voice was just a rasp now, barely more than a growl. "Enough to marry you, or more."

She gave a disbelieving little laugh. "What is more than marrying me?"

"Death," was his immediate reply. "I want you enough to die for you."

She looked surprised. She probably wasn't used to men making sacrifices on her behalf, was probably accustomed to just the opposite, of men sacrificing her for their own purposes.

"No one will ever hurt you again," he told her gravely. "I will die before I let that happen."

"You talk much about death."

"It's all I know."

"I'll have to teach you something new."

Was she… _flirting_ with him? It was inconceivable, but that faint smile, that toss of scarlet hair over a narrow shoulder… yes, somehow, she was. Could he… flirt back? He decided to try.

"If we survive this, you may teach me anything you like."

Sansa was quiet for a long moment before saying, "I suspect there is a lot you can teach me, too."

And desire stabbed through Sandor like a spear-thrust. He'd felt it for her, before, and always had it been accompanied by a rare pang of guilt. She had been so, so young, in mind as well as body. He had always despised those who violated young girls. But Sansa had lived a lifetime since he'd left her. Her body was a woman's, now. And her mind… her mind was a crone's, ancient and knowing.

He, however, was just as damaged as ever. It had been his nameday, recently, and it had shocked him to realize he was only twenty-eight years old. He felt like he'd aged a dozen in the past year alone. He could not inflict his broken old self upon her.

"I would not force you to accept me as your husband," he told her. "I will fight for you without exacting a price. You don't have to pay me a copper. I'll fight, and when it's over, I'll go." One way or another, he'd leave her to find some joy for herself.

"I thought of you often," she said after a moment. It was not an answer to his statement, he didn't think. "I wondered where you were, if you were still drinking too much wine." She darted a tiny smile at him, at that. "I used to wonder if you had kissed me, that night of the battle, before you left. I hoped you had."

… _what?_ His breath froze in his lungs.

"I made the friendship of blind old dog, at The Eyrie. He brought me much comfort. I thought he might have been sent by you, to remind me of when I'd had you to protect me. And when someone fought off a minstrel trying to… get too familiar, I thought it was you, back to save me once more. I wished it had been you."

Sandor began to back up as he shook his head. What was this… recitation? Why was she listing all the ways he'd been in her thoughts over the past months? Moreover, why had he been in her thoughts at all? She should have forgotten all about him the moment he'd left her in King's Landing, for the sake of her own sanity, if no other reason.

She was following his shameful retreat, pursuing him until his back was to a wall, and still she pressed on. It was only when the cloak he'd draped around her was swirling at his feet, dancing with the folds of his tunic, that she came to a halt.

"Once, I dreamt of you." Her voice was soft, her lips pink as they shaped the words, her summer eyes lit by the golden sunrise streaming through the little window. "I dreamt I was your wife, and you were joining me in our bed."

Speechless, he could only stare at Sansa. She stared back, no hint of a shy maiden's blush on her cheek, and the moment stretched, long and thick and honey-sweet. She brought up her own hand, her _left_ hand, and she placed it on his grotesque cheek, the ruined snarl of melted flesh and scar tissue caused by his own brother and changing the course of his life forever. The damage had been deep, and he could hardly feel her touch, but he brought up his free hand and covered hers with it, pressing hers more firmly against him, starving for her.

"So you see, I have thought of you as my husband for many days now. I hope you will not leave me, when this is over, because then I would have to find myself another."

Another spear of emotion lanced his belly, this time not of desire but of protest, of denial and rage. _No._ He could not abide the thought of another bedding her, fathering her children. Just the idea hurt enough to kill him. This, then must have been the source of so much of his misunderstood fury and bitterness, back in King's Landing: a corrosive and impotent jealousy of Joffrey, then of Tyrion, for having all of her when he was panting for whatever mere scrap he could scavenge.

"I don't think I could find another man so brave as you, however."

"I told you, I'm not brave," he snapped.

Her gaze was unwavering on his face, looking and looking and _looking_ at him. Why did she always look at him so? As if his ruined flesh and grotesque scars weren't even there? She continued as if he had not spoken at all.

"Nor one with a body so strong, nor a blade so sharp, nor a heart so true. You don't lie to me, Sandor, but you would die for me. And you won't hurt me." She gave him an impish little grin. "You're already a better husband to me than all the the others have been."

He became aware that he was trembling.

"Why don't you speak? You have never been shy about telling me your opinion before." Her smile widened, but it was gentle, not using him as its brunt, before fading. "Do you think I would not make you a good wife? Or that my situation is too difficult?"

She sighed. "You would not be wrong. The aftermath of this battle, should we win, will be a nightmare to untangle, and I must be in the thick of it, to help Jon with Winterfell and travel to King's Landing again, to decide what to do with it."

The more need she had for him, then. There was no way he would let her go among that lot of vipers without protection.

"I will stay and protect you. But I will not hold you to your promise to wed me."

A clatter at the door announced an armored warrior had arrived. It was Jon Snow, looking apprehensive about the upcoming battle. "Everyone's ready. We're about to go downstairs."

As one, Sansa and Sandor nodded at him, and he left. Sandor felt a moment's embarrassment to be observed pinned to the wall by a girl half his size, as captive as if she held a blade to his throat.

 _A blade._ That reminded him. He had no aptitude for anything that she had thrust upon him, this roiling mess of thought and feeling in his belly, but he knew one thing he could do well: killing. "If we lose, if I fall, how will you do it?"

She knew just what he meant, and did not appear bothered to have him switch to such a gruesome subject. "I thought to stab myself."

"With what knife?"

From a hidden pocket in her gown, she drew a small knife. It was a pathetic blade, barely sharp enough to cut an apple.

"That little thing will take an hour to hack through anything important," he sneered, all contempt, snatching it from her hand and discarding it over his shoulder. He pulled his favorite dagger from his belt and held it out to her, a shaft of watery sunlight flickering on the wickedly sharp edge he'd honed just that morning, in case it were needed for this most essential task.

Sansa took it in both her hands, staring down at it. "How do I do it?"

"Best— fastest— is the throat." Sandor touched his fingertips to the pulse fluttering in her neck, warm and smooth as silk. "Go as deeply as you can manage. It will be quick. Won't hurt long."

"Jon says there's nothing after death," she told him, her gaze fixed on the knife in her hands. "Nothing at all."

He gave a short, bitter laugh. "I never thought there was."

"I had hoped…" she sighed, glanced toward the window where the sounds of shouting and neighing horses burgeoned. "I had hoped there was. That there was more than just how horrible living has been."

He wanted to tell her otherwise, give her something to anticipate, but he had nothing. His hands were empty, he had nothing to offer her.

Melisandre entered the room, and Sandor and Sansa stepped back from each other, as if they'd been doing something shameful, something besides staring at each other. His fingers could still feel the flesh of her throat. More time, why was there not more time? More time to become a good man, someone who might deserve her.

"I've been told that you are needed on the battlefield, ser," Melisandre informed him, "and that I am to stay here with you, my lady."

"I'm not a ser," Sandor said absently as he feasted his eyes on Sansa's face one last time, needing to hold its image in his mind, to give him something to see besides blood and death.

"Come back to me," Sansa told him, _commanded_ him, and in that moment, she was every inch a queen.

Her sweetness was killing him, as surely as a Bolton sword might do in the next hour. He turned on his heel and strode from the room, and the blue of her eyes went with him every step of the way.


	4. Chapter 4

_Sandor_

The fight was not going well for their side.

Despite not having been in a full-scale battle since Blackwater, Sandor fell into his usual rhythmic patterns and methodically cut a path through Bolton's men to where the family's flayed-man standard proclaimed the location of the bastard himself. Under his borrowed helm, Sandor was anonymous, but through its grill, his grin could be seen as he engaged Ramsay in battle.

"Nice large fellow, you are. You seem cocky," Ramsay commented with a smile. His eyes were bright, and he was only lightly winded— he was having a grand old time, it would seem, for there were at least a dozen corpses piled around him. "Have we met before?"

Sandor ignored him and concentrated on trying to incapacitate his adversary. Ramsay liked to waste his energy with little flourishes, designed more to insult and torment than kill. The more fool him; Sandor had been conserving _his_ energy for killing alone. He drove Ramsay's sword above their heads, then sent a huge boot to the little bastard's midsection.

Ramsay went down like a sack of shit, gasping, airless. Sandor sent his other foot directly into the man's crotch with every ounce of strength he could muster, and Ramsay screamed in agony, so loud and so high that it caught the attention of his allies.

They started to fight their way over. Bored, Sandor cut down enough of them that the rest wisely went back to their own fights. When he turned back to Ramsay, it was to find he had rolled to his hands and knees and was trying desperately to crawl away.

 _Ah._ Not so brazen when at a disadvantage, was he? Sandor strolled after him, bestowing upon Ramsay a gruesome smile when the other man glanced back over his shoulder. Ramsay's face was ash-gray, his hair drenched with sweat, and his eyes rolled with fear like a hamstrung horse.

Sandor supposed he could give the man a nice quick death, now, but where was the fun in that? In love with Sansa he might be— for whatever that was worth, or whatever it meant— but that didn't mean that he'd been lying when he'd told her that one of the finest things in life was to kill.

He knew why the gods forbade it; because they were jealously guarding it as the only thing that could bring a mortal close to touching and sharing their power. Sandor might be disfigured, with a huge bulky form and clumsy hands and a hateful, low-caste family of monstrous killers, but in that split-second of taking a life, he was a _god_.

And now it was time for this god to pass judgment on a pathetic creature, scrabbling in the dirt like a worm.

Ramsay was still crawling away. Sandor wondered, idly, where he thought he could go, but then shrugged it off as irrelevant. He stomped down on the man's spine, and Ramsay shrieked again as a few ribs cracked.

"So," Sandor began, his tone conversational, even though it echoed in the confines of the helm. "I hear you enjoyed raping Sansa Stark. And have threatened to let your men rape her, too." He removed the helm, then, to let his opponent see who he was.

Ramsay's eyes, already huge and terrified, seemed to expand to take over his entire face as comprehension dawned: the Hound himself had declared himself as Sansa's protector. And avenger. And executioner.

"A misunderstanding," he panted. "I will apologize, I'll beg her for mercy, I'll—"

"Stupid girl would probably forgive you, too," Sandor grumbled. He sheathed his own sword and took Ramsay's from his hand with purposefully insulting ease, placing the point of it just where he imagined the man's arsehole was. "I won't, though."

Ramsay tried a last frantic scuttle across the churned-up mud. Sandor jammed a foot on the man's ankle, pinning him in place, and smirked at the feel of bones crunching and shattering, then at the howl of pain that resulted.

"I've given it some thought. Since no self-respecting Wilding in his right mind would want to rape you, you ugly little cunt, I can't arrange to have the entire army of Free Folk violate you as you threatened to have your army do to Sansa."

He pressed the sword harder, and felt the resistance of the leather armor covering Ramsay's arse just before it gave way.

"So I'll just have to do my best to come up with a substitute."

"No… no, please…" Tears coursed down Ramsay's face to plop into the filth under him.

"Crying? Begging?" Sandor leaned forward, driving the sword an inch forward. "Did you make Sansa cry and beg?" He spit in Ramsay's face.

And then he shoved the sword deep up the man's arse, until it passed through his body and into the ground. He followed it up with a savage twist. "There's the same mercy you showed her."

Ramsay arched in agony, trying again to claw his way forward to escape the weapon pinning him to the earth like an insect. His face was disbelieving, a bloodless, pasty white, and his lips tried— and failed— to form words.

Sandor lost interest in the man, now that revenge had been visited upon him, and looked up to find a ring of Bolton soldiers surrounding him. He tensed, unsheathing his sword once more, but they weren't attacking him. They were just… staring. Gaping, in fact, at the sight of their lord and master, twitching in the muck, his hands reaching desperately for help that did not come.

"There's a lot more swords around here," Sandor announced, "and a lot of empty arses. Who wants to be next?"

They scattered. He passed another disinterested glance over Ramsay, who had stopped moving and now just lay there, his breathing that of a snared rabbit, quick and shallow and panicked and doomed. He'd die soon enough. Sandor had to get back to Sansa.

Sandor began to fight his way through the masses once more, this time in the other direction. A shout of dismay sounded a hundred feet to his right, and his height let him see Jon Snow go down under a dozen opponents while his men tried, fruitlessly, to save their lord.

 _Fucking, sodding, bleeding hell._ Sandor redoubled his efforts, making it back to the keep wall just as the doors were battered inward. Brienne and Tormund were there, and they threw themselves into the fray with a practiced expertise Sandor could only appreciate. He joined them, and they wrought havoc for long, endless moments, until it was obvious that despite their best efforts, they were doomed.

"Snow's dead," he told them. "I'm going to her." Brienne caught his gaze, her own stricken as she realized he was accepting their defeat, and then nodded.

"We'll follow, if we can," she said. "They'll only get to her through us." Beside her, Tormund decapitated one unlucky fellow hoping to use Brienne's distraction to his own advantage.

"Attention on the battle, wench," the Wildling muttered, and with a roll of her eyes, Brienne went back to the fight.

Sandor sped up the stairs three at a time. When he burst into the room, Sansa spun from the window, the dagger he'd given her at the ready, and placed herself between the door and Melisandre. Brave little bird, always thinking to protect, when she needed protection most of all.

"What's she doing?" he demanded, jerking his head toward the witch, who crouched in a corner, hands in the air before her face, chanting her nonsense.

"I think she's praying for victory," replied Sansa with a worried glance.

Sandor snorted. "It will take a divine intervention, because we're fucked."

She paled, and he crossed the room to her. Sansa reached for him, put her beautiful face against his chest as she had done the day before, and like then, Sandor curled his free arm about her waist.

"I killed Bolton for you," he said against her hair. He was smearing her with blood and sweat, but it didn't matter anymore. She didn't seem to care, either, just held him more tightly.

Brienne and Tormund stumbled in, both wounded. Sandor spun around, shoving Sansa behind him, prepared to take on all comers.

Bolton's men followed them in. There was confusion, shouting, frantic motion, the meaty thunk of an arrow penetrating flesh, shocked gasps of pain.

The soldiers turned to Melisandre, a crossbow at the ready.

Overhead, the sky roared, heralding the arrival of dragons. The ruby flashed at her throat. A bolt flew at her.

Melisandre finished her chanting, and gave herself up to the Lord of Light.


	5. Chapter 5

_Melisandre - The morning of the battle_

Melisandre stiffened, her spoonful of gray porridge falling, unheeded, to the table. The other men seated at the table with her paused, glancing her way to see her staring blindly across the room. When nothing else happened, they returned to breaking their fasts, well used to her odd ways by now.

Then she slammed both hands to the pitted old wood, and flung her head back as her eyes rolled up. The men looked her way again, and Davos scrambled to catch her as she lurched off the bench, convulsing. He lowered her to the floor, and she gripped a fold of his tunic.

"Get them," she hissed. "I have much to say."

"Who?" asked Davos, but he knew.

"Snow, his sister… the Maid… the Wildling… all of them."

Davos nodded at one of the men, who rushed off to fetch those who were needed. He shooed the rest of them from the room, and the last one out had to brush by Jon Snow as he hurried in response to being summoned.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, his eyes on Melisandre's twitching form.

"Where are they? They must come," she demanded between shallow breaths.

Sansa arrived soon after, Sandor and Brienne trailing her, Tormund trailing Brienne (to her chagrin).

Melisandre calmed but for some trembling, and Jon and Davos helped her back onto the bench.

"I have had a vision," she announced to the assembly. "From the future. From later today."

"What is it?" Jon sat next to her, leaning forward, eagerness in every line of his face. "Tell us."

The ruby at her throat pulsed, and then light shot from it toward each of them, striking their foreheads, making memories bloom behind their eyes.

 _Jon_

Jon opened his eyes and found himself in the thick of battle: horses and men screaming, bleeding, dying. Arrows pelting down a deadly hail that had him wishing he had a shield, so he plucked one from a nearby corpse and forged ahead.

The Night's Watch soldiers around him were falling, one by one, until only Edd and a few others remained. They hacked, they slashed, but it seemed as if the Boltons had an unending flood of sword-fodder; for each they cut down, there were more, and more, and more.

Jon had sustained some minor wounds— a cut here, a slash there— but nothing too worrisome until one Bolton man managed to slip his sword under Jon's wearying arm and between his ribs.

 _Ah, that_ _'s fatal,_ Jon thought. He knew it, could tell that something important had just been rendered wide open. He'd felt it before, after all. Still, he fought on. Even after he fell to his knees, he hacked at legs, and when he was flat on his face, he stabbed at feet. _Anything_.

There was a dull ringing in his ears, but over that, louder, more piercing… a roar like the ocean, and the smell of sulfur…

With one last, monumental effort, he rolled to his back, and through the writhing mass of struggling fighters he could see the sky overhead, blue blue blue, and bisecting it, a beast from myth spat out a gout of flame just before everything went black.

 _Brienne_

Brienne was impressed, _greatly_ impressed, by Tormund on this day. His battle prowess was indisputable, and his grim determination to remain by her side had saved her multiple times. He'd even cracked a few jokes to keep her spirits up when she had seemed at the brink of despair before rallying.

And never, never had he lost that expression of devoted wonder in his eyes every time he looked at her. If anything, it had grown. Her irritation at his relentless pursuit had melted into a fierce ache of frustration. That she should now, at this eleventh hour, find a man who saw under her homely face, past her over-tall body with its small breasts and narrow hips, beyond her unfeminine prowess with a sword… And there was no time, no chance, to do anything about it! Bitterness flooded her mouth.

She had paced herself as best she could, but this had been hours of non-stop fighting. She had little more left in her. Whatever remained, she wanted it used to guard Sansa.

"I'm going inside," she called to Tormund, who nodded and followed as she beat her way into the yard and up the stairs, walking backwards as he protected her. But he was weary, too, and a spear got past him to find the join of armor at her waist. A huge wet gush down her leg told her that something important had been hit.

Tormund sliced the spearman in half, but the damage was done. Brienne heaved herself up the last few stairs and through the doors. He followed her through, then slammed them shut and barred them.

"No," he said, upon taking in the puddle of blood at her foot, his eyes wide with dread. " _No_."

But he was wounded, too.

"Tormund," she breathed in horror, her gaze fixed on where his furs blossomed red at his thigh.

He glanced down. "Ah, hadn't noticed that." They shared a long, fraught glance of resignation, and on Tormund's part, thwarted adoration. A loud bang on the doors shocked them free of it— the Bolton men were breaking them down.

"Press on the wound," Brienne ordered him. A wave of dizziness wracked her, and she listed against the wall. Tormund ignored her command, using his free arm instead to hoist her upright and haul her along with him toward the hall where Sansa waited.

They stumbled in, finding Melisandre out of her head in a corner and Sandor brandishing his sword while Sansa peeked over his shoulder.

"My lady," Brienne gasped, falling to her knees before using Oathkeeper to push herself upright once more. Blood streaked her face and throat, and her foot was soaked from the steady stream down the dark metal of her armor. Next to her, the Wildling's furs were more red than brown, and he released her to clasp his free hand to his thigh in a futile attempt to staunch the blood geysering from it. Brienne's strength failed her at last, and down she went, rolling to her back.

Tormund half-fell, half-dropped to her side. "I'd have married you, you know."

She reached out a hand toward him, and he took it in both his own.

"I'm sorry," she said, and a trickle of crimson dribbled from her mouth, across her cheek. He wiped it away, tenderly, even as he toppled to his side next to her. "For wasting time. I misjudged you."

"You figured it out in the end," he coughed, trying to laugh. With a mighty effort, he heaved himself up to loom over her, pressing a hearty, smacking kiss to her lips. His own came away stained red. "There, we're married. Damned shame I never got to fuck you."

Brienne coughed out a laugh of her own. "A romantic to the end."

He mustered one last wild grin, then dropped his face to new wife's shoulder. Brienne managed to bring up her hand to hold his head against her.

A great crash sounded as the doors gave way at last. Footsteps thundered down the hallway.

In the corner, Melisandre's chanting gained volume and speed.

Brienne's hearing was fading, but there was the twang of a crossbolt, and she could have sworn she heard some distant rumble of thunder.

Tormund gave one last shuddering sigh. Brienne's hand fell, limp, from his head to fall to the floor.

 _Sandor_

Footsteps thundered on the stairs, down the hallway. Sansa stared in horror over Sandor's shoulder, her hands clutching at him.

"This is the end," she panted into Sandor's back.

The Bolton men were upon them. They spared a scant glance at Tormund and Brienne, dying on the floor, stepping over them in confidence that they would soon be gone, if they weren't already. One brought up a crossbow and aimed it at Sandor. He spun around to face Sansa, taking her in his arms. If he were to die, he wanted his last sight to be her face.

He lowered his lips to hers, sick with rancor that his first time kissing her was also his last. She kissed him back, desperately, and then the crossbow bolt skewered him to her, throwing them back against the wall. Sansa's eyes rolled back as they slid to the floor.

"Oh," she whispered, as if surprised that dying would hurt.

Rage and despair and futility and loss, and, and just _everything_ , everything _ever,_ flared up in Sandor until he was mad with it, until it felt like it would burst from him. That tiny spark of hope, for a home and a family and a future, died with a sputter.

Sandor's vision narrowed in an instant to a tiny pinprick before blackening altogether.

In the corner, Melisandre's chanting gained volume and speed.

Blind, dumb, their blood mingling around the bolt locking them together, and then there was a roar from above that shook the keep's walls. Sandor's hearing failed, and there was nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: I am so incredibly stupid! I forgot to publish chapters 6 and 7, though they were ready literally years ago. I'm so sorry! If any of you still give a damn about this story, here are 2 more chapters! I have no idea if I'll ever write more of it, but for the most part, everything resolves with them, the last chapter or two would just be the happy resolution/how everyone ends up. But functionally, the story is over.**

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* * *

 _._

 _Sandor_

The shared vision ended abruptly, just as their lives had done during it. Brienne sprang back to press against the wall, her eyes a bit wild. Tormund went to her, batting aside her hands as she tried to push him away.

"Stop fighting me," he growled, and pulled her into his arms. She pounded on his shoulders at first, but then melted against him with shocking suddenness.

"I can still feel it," she gasped against his bearded cheek. "Pain, grief… you died. We all died." Her fingers clutched at his furs. "Guilt, for failing Lady Sansa— Lady Catelyn, again…"

"You did not fail me, or my mother. You did not, Brienne." Sansa's voice was unsteady as she trained her eyes on her guard, and her body was shaking beside Sandor like a leaf in a full gale.

He didn't feel too steady, himself. The burn of her lips against his, in their final moments, would be imprinted upon him forever.

"I still consider us wed," Tormund announced to his lady-love.

"By the gods," Brienne replied, half-crying, half-laughing. "That's not how it works."

"What does this all mean?" asked Jon, ashen as he leaned against the fireplace, and turned away from the weak flames struggling to flicker in its depths. "Did the rest of you see dragons? Or am I going mad?"

"See? No," Sandor rasped. His gaze had not wavered from Sansa once since the vision— hallucination, delusion, whatever it was— had ended. "But I heard them."

"Is that what that sound was?" Tormund inquired. Brienne was trying to extricate herself from his embrace, now, but whichever arm she managed to peel away, he'd just wrap back around her somewhere else. He was looking bizarrely happy, for a man who'd had the same mad experience as the rest of them. "Huh, dragons. I'll be fucked."

Judging by Brienne's expression, no, he would not be, not any time soon.

"I heard it, too," said Sansa with an incongruously adorable crinkle of her nose. "And I smelled brimstone."

"It happened just as I died." Jon seemed a bit less shaken by it all, compared to the rest of them, but Sandor supposed that when you'd died once, the experience lost something of its impact.

"Same," he replied. Around him, everyone else was nodding as well.

"It was your deaths that powered the spell sending the vision back to me," intoned Melisandre.

"To what end?" asked Brienne. She had given up trying to get away from Tormund and now just stood in the circle of his arms. "It's clear that we're outmanned. That this battle will be a rout, and us on the losing side. Better to change strategies now, to live another day, take more time to build up our forces and try again."

"Perhaps," began Davos thoughtfully, "we might like to examine the one thing all your visions had in common."

"Like dying?" muttered Sandor.

Davos shook his head. "Reinforcements are coming, reinforcements that will turn the tide of the battle. We just have to hold out long enough for them to arrive."

"Our mistake was riding out to meet them," Jon said into the silence that followed Davos' pronouncement. "We had wanted to keep the fighting as far from the keep as possible, but perhaps it would be better to wait until they bring it to us."

"We can't count on them to wait too long." Brienne was coming around to the idea of stalling, but clearly didn't have a lot of faith that it would have much success.

"Even if we can delay a few minutes, it might be enough," said Davos. "We just have to wait until the dragons arrive."

"Tormund, are any of your Free Folk good at camouflage?" At that man's nod, Sandor continued, "We can station them in key positions so they can surveil any troop movement by Bolton, then get word to us. That way, we'll be prepared to meet them outside the keep and maintain a safe zone around it."

At the speechless expressions of shock that met his words, Sandor grimaced and muttered, "I've been a soldier for over ten years, leading my own company for over five of them. Did you think I had no tactical experience?"

"I knew you had," said Sansa staunchly. Proudly, even. He felt the way he had that long-ago day when he'd fought Gregor off from killing stupid Ser Loras, who'd then flung their hands in the air to accept the adulation of the crowd: embarrassed, foolish, ungainly and misplaced.

Jon nodded, his mind made up. "Then that's what we'll do. We'll win this time." His started for the door but then stopped, his gaze flickering over to Melisandre. "But if we don't, can you do the same again? Send back a message to tell us what went wrong?"

She and Davos joined him, and they all left the room together. Her response was faint as they moved down the hallway. "Yes."

Alone, Sandor turned to Sansa. The feeble light streaming through the dirty window glinted off her hair, turning it to flame, and her eyes were like shards of sky. He lifted his hand to run his fingertips over the satin curve of her cheek. She pressed her face into the cup of his palm, rubbing, kittenish, clearly not objecting to his touch, so Sandor stepped closer and took her other hand in his. He brought it to his lips, kissed the back of it.

There was so much he wanted to do to her— with her— things he'd thought of in King's Landing, and the Quiet Isle; at Winterfell, her childhood home all around him, and during his journey north. What shocked him most was that those things featured equally as many sexual things as not. He wanted to fuck her— gods, yes, for days at a time— but he also wanted to share meals with her, and go hunting with her— he'd bet she'd be a demon with a falcon— and then it would be good to sit by the fire, at night after supper, talking or not. Sansa could embroider, and he'd whittle little figures for her out of wood. Perhaps, in time, there would be children…

It was an idyllic imagining of a happy, peaceful home life. He'd never had that, as a boy. His parents had not had a love match, and avoided each other like a particularly virulent plague. He was terrified at the idea that it might somehow, incredibly, be possible for him now. She had agreed to marry him; seemed to want to marry him, in fact. It was a fucking miracle and he wasn't going to take it for granted.

"I won't leave you, this time," he told her. "If we're letting them get closer, there will be less time for reaction, if they break through."

"But they'll need you out there," she protested.

"You'll need me here more," he rasped. Her hand was on his cheek now, and her breath feathered over his face— when had she come so close? His heart felt like it would thunder out of his chest. The memory of their only kiss, just as they died, still lingered on his lips. And his despair lingered, too, that he'd only get to hold her, to kiss her, for those few brief heartbeats.

Sansa pressed closer. Her hands were sliding up over his shoulders, clasping around his neck. She must have had some witchy mind-reading skill, because she murmured, "Won't you kiss me when we're not about to die?"

Well. He didn't need to be told twice. Her eyelashes were auburn fans on her cheeks as she lifted her beloved face, giving herself to him. He pressed his mouth to hers, hoping she wouldn't be too repelled by the side of it that was scarred. But she slipped her hands up to frame his face, thumbs stroking his cheeks— both of them— and her tongue flickered against his like a flame.

Sandor was no green lad. He'd had whores, scores of them over the years. But he had kissed few of them (or rather, few of them had permitted him to kiss them) and none had kissed him like this, like he mattered, like they wanted him, like they loved him. His chest felt as if it were cracking open, like he could just pry out his heart and hand it to her. Something about the way she sighed into his mouth told him the foolish girl would accept it, too, as if it were something of value instead of just a little-used organ trying desperately to learn how to beat.

The sweetness of her lips turned salty, and he opened his eyes to find that she was crying. He jerked back, horrified he'd done something so wrong she'd cry over it. Gods, he was worthless, clumsy and unskilled, how could he have thought—

"I'm so happy," Sansa whispered, pressing her damp face to his chest. "I'm so glad you came here. I prayed you'd find me, somehow."

Relief crashed through him like the ballast from a catapult and made him crush her closer, until she squeaked in protest.

"I can't breathe," she gasped, laughing up at him, and he had to kiss her again. Then again.

They were still kissing when Jon Snow came to fetch them.

"The Wildling's arrow is here," he said, a gentle smile on his face to see his sister and Sandor pull apart with embarrassed haste. "Bolton's forces are on the move."

"Please go out there and fight," Sansa said. "We need you so much out there. I need you out there. Please, Sandor."

He scowled, but she begged so sweetly. He had a sinking feeling that their future would include a lot of him giving way to her pretty requests. He pulled his dagger from his belt and handed it to her.

"Do you remember what I told you?"

She nodded. "The throat, quick and deep."

"You won't need it," Sandor told her. "I'll come back. We'll win this time."

She nodded, blinking rapidly in hopes of staunching the tears that fell once more (it didn't work). She hugged and kissed him, then Snow.

"You both have to come back. I love you." Her gaze encompassed the two of them, but she lingered on Sandor a moment longer than Snow. It felt like a mule kick to the solar plexis, but he had no time to gape in amazement, because Snow was tugging his arm, yapping something about getting their armor on. He let the smaller man pull him down the hallway.

His last sight of Sansa was her smiling while she swiped the tears off her cheeks.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: This is all I have for the moment, and it's unlikely I'll go back to it, but... I think you can infer from this how everything ends :)**

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The fight was bizarrely anti-climactic.

They had fought for less than an hour before the screech of dragons rent the air. Jon and the other commanders began yelling for their men to retreat, much to the bemusement of their opponents. Ramsay started cackling in delight at this show of cowardice, until a triad of dark shapes approached in the sky and began flambéing his men.

The white one flew high over the archers, and while they loosed a thousand ineffectual arrows that missed it completely, the green dragon flew in from behind, quite low, and turned them all to ash. The black one went straight for the cavalry, seeming almost to grin as they tried to run away, horses panicking and disobeying their riders in their frantic attempts to escape. Almost without effort, it swept down and bathed them all in a sea of fire.

Then the three joined ranks and coursed over the foot soldiers, mowing them down until there was nothing left but ashes floating in the air, sparkling like a new snowfall.

All told, it took fewer than five minutes before the unroasted remains of the Bolton forces deserted the charred corpses of their fellows and the battlefield.

Ramsey, alone and abandoned— even by his horse, which bucked him off before fleeing- tried to follow them in escape, but one of the dragons peeled off from the other two and herded him back with strategic blasts of fire until he was surrounded on all sides by the landed beasts.

It was all far too close for Sandor's comfort. He was sure he'd be having nightmares for years, about the flames spewing from their huge maws and the smell of cooking flesh.

A crash behind him had him spinning around to find the doors flung open. He searched for and found Sansa's bright hair as she pelted down the stairs and across the yard, toward him. As she approached, he saw that her cheeks were wet with tears.

"You're safe, you're safe," she chanted, flinging herself at him, heedless of the gore on his armor or the sweat on his face as she covered it with kisses. Then she pulled away and launched herself at her brother, then at Brienne, and even at Tormund and Davos and Edd, before returning to Sandor and nestling herself close into his side.

He thought, absently, that he should be embarrassed to be so fussed over by a woman. And not just any woman: a lady, the sister of a king. A beauty, kind and brave and strong. And likely mad as a shithouse rat, if she'd put aside those long-held dreams of a handsome, princely knight for a ruined old mongrel such as himself. In that triumphant moment, however, he couldn't find even a scrap of shame within himself. For once, perhaps, he'd earned himself a reward, even if that reward were a drastic overpayment.

They all stared at the assembly of dragons. Though they'd known the creatures were coming, still it was hard to believe they were truly there. They had accomplished in mere minutes what the entire combined force of Night's Watch, Wildlings, and scrounged-up allies had before failed to do in hours.

Something gold and silver and blue was moving on top of the black dragon, and then it became clear that its rider was standing on its back and waving at them.

"That must be her." Sansa had told the others what she knew about the last Targaryen, according to the reports she'd overheard Joffrey getting.

Jon made for one of the nearby riderless horses. "I think she wants us to approach."

Sandor tossed Sansa up onto another, took one for himself, and they all made their way toward the small conclave of dragons in the distance. When they were within shouting distance, the black one turned to them, wary and alert. It was a titanic black beast that looked like it wanted to char-broil and eat them all for elevenses. A tiny elf-like woman with ivory hair, wearing practical azure leathers she somehow made look like a coronation gown, clambered down from the creature's back.

"Thank you, my darling," she told it, as if it were just a pet dog instead of the single most destructive force in the world, giving it a fond cuddle around the neck before striding toward their apprehensive group. And the dragon, power barely leashed, was tame in her hands.

It rather reminded Sandor of Sansa and himself, and he felt a sudden kinship with the bloody monster. The breast huffed and shifted, and Sandor could have sworn it looked right at him. And that it was _laughing_ at him.

The woman then went to the white dragon and likewise petted and complimented it. Finally, she turned to the assembly and smiled.

"I am Daenerys Targaryen," she said simply.

"I am Jon Snow." He stepped forward, then swept an unsure bow before her. "Your Grace."

Then he turned to where Sansa was clinging to Sandor, hand outstretched to summon her closer.

"My sister, Sansa Stark of Winterfell."

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* * *

 _._

 _Sansa_

Sansa detached herself from Sandor and went to her brother, taking his hand and sinking into a curtsey before Daenerys.

"Sansa Stark, you say?" The other woman's lips turned up in a curious smile. "I have someone with me you might be interested to see again."

"Your Grace?" Sansa frowned; how had the women even known of her existence?

Daenerys glanced back over her shoulder, and spoke in the direction of the green beast in the back. "Are you ever coming down from that dragon?"

"No," said a male voice. It sounded… familiar. "I'm not. I'm staying here forever, with this wondrous beauty. We shall never be parted." The dragon arched its head, seeming to preen at the compliment, and blew out a pleased little smoke ring.

Daenerys' expression shifted, so subtly that Sansa almost couldn't tell, but it became both weary and amused at the same time.

"I shall rephrase myself. Come down from the dragon now." Her sudden grin was quicksilver, gone in a flash. "Or I will have him buck you off. You will not enjoy flying then, I warrant."

Grumbling could be heard from the green dragon's environs, and then a pair of boots— a very _small_ pair of boots— leapt to the ground. Tyrion Lannister burst into sight when he dodged away from the black dragon's massive head swinging in his direction, its mouth gaping and eyes narrow.

"Don't be cross," he soothed the beast. "You're lovely too. But you're Dany's favorite, she'd have you chew my head off if I tried to coax you to my side."

The dragon huffed and blew a little shoot of flame in Tyrion's direction, causing him to do a nimble sidestep once more, laughing as he did. His eyes were bright and his face suffused with joy; he looked happier than Sansa had ever seen him.

"Ah, there she is!" he cried, making straight for her, hands outstretched. "How fare thee, my wife?"

Sansa darted a glance at Sandor; he hadn't moved an eyelash, but she could sense the turmoil burbling within him.

"Um," she said, feeling stupid, belatedly remembering to aim a curtsey in his direction as she took his hands and gave them a limp little shake. "Lord Tyrion."

Upon reaching her, he looked up… and up… and up. "Gods, are you even taller?" He gave a short laugh. "Well, I suppose I could just climb you like a tree…"

A low rumble coming from Sandor's direction.

"Is that the growling of a dog I hear?" Tyrion swung around, quite dramatically, feigning shock. "Why, Clegane, whatever do you here in these far-northern climes?"

"Pray do not tease him, my lord," Sansa whispered from his side, her eyes imploring Sandor to hold his temper. "It has been a trying day and he… well, you know he has scant control over his temper as it is."

"Well do I know how fragile the Hound's patience is," Tyrion said, his eyes shrewd as they darted between his spouse and his family's former guardsman. "The question becomes how you know it so well, my lady wife."

A creak of leather armor had Sansa darting her eyes toward Sandor. He'd only shifted his stance, placed a hand with deceptive casualness on the hilt of his sword, but she could tell there was maybe another minute or two of calm in him before something was being hacked to bits. And this time, it wouldn't be an old table.

Daenerys stepped up to Tyrion's other side. Her face was serene but it was clear that she could detect the tension. She shot Sansa a glance of womanly commiseration over the antics of men and their frail sensitivities.

"It will much inconvenience me to have to find another Hand, should you antagonize this huge man into killing you," she murmured. Her gaze, roving over Sandor's immense, muscular form, was quite complimentary. Sansa left them to stand at his side, staking her claim with crystal clarity.

"Would you avenge my loss, Khaleesi?" Tyrion asked, his tone pert.

"Indeed not," came her answer in a tone of vast amusement. "It will have been a richly deserved fate. I might even envy him the doing of it."

Davos gave a discreet cough. "Might I suggest we… make a decision about our prisoner?" He nodded toward where Ramsay stood encircled by the dragons, being playfully tormented by them for sport as they took turns shooting flames at him, making him dance to avoid being broiled.

"Quite so." Daenerys said. "What shall be his fate?" She gave a slow, rather chilling smile that sat ill on the serene backdrop of her face. "My lambs have not eaten since we left Winterfell. Think you he would give them indigestion?"

Half a dozen people blinked in reaction to such a casually bloodthirsty… joke? Had it been a joke? Sansa darted a glance at her companions and saw that the majority consensus was of surprised distaste (Davos, Edd, Brienne), with Sandor and Tormund seeming quite appreciative of her ruthlessness.

Jon, however, was gazing at her with a sort of terrified ardor. Sansa had heard of his relationship with the Wildling, Ygritte, and that woman's exuberant ways. What was it with him and rowdy women? She'd have to ponder that mystery later. Right now, her brother was turning to look her way, and she knew he was deferring the choice to her.

"If he does," Sansa began slowly, "I'm sure the maester can mix up something to sooth their bellies." She then flashed the other woman a feral little smile, and let her gaze drift to Ramsay. How she'd hated him, how she would always hate him. Ending up as dragon chow was too fine a fate for him— not agonizing enough, to be sure— but there was a definite sense of poetic justice to it. "However, he's a meager, disappointing meal, and stringy besides. Won't they need more than just that little scrap?"

Daenerys returned that smile with a wicked one of her own. "Quite so." She turned to a clump of foot soldiers, milling about, watching the excitement with wide eyes and wider mouths. "You men, unsaddle some of the dead horses for their lunch. That tanned leather will give them indigestion."

She held out a hand to Sansa, who took it, and together they approached the knot of dragons and the prisoner at the center of it.

"I sense a dark history between you and this man," Daenerys said in a low voice as they walked.

"Yes," was all Sansa replied, but their eyes met, and a book's worth of pain and humiliation and cruelty was spoken by her, and read by the other. Sansa saw, then, that Daenerys knew exactly what she had suffered at Ramsay's hands, had suffered it herself. "I would like for us to be friends, Your Grace," she said on impulse.

Daenerys' face lit up, and for a moment she appeared more a young girl than an impossibly powerful queen. She gave Sansa's hand a squeeze. "I'd like that." Then the smile fell from her lips, and she turned back to the dragons and their prey. "The death-blow is yours to command. Just say when."

Sansa squeezed her hand back before detaching herself and stepping closer. She was almost lightheaded with fear, being so close to the dragons, especially when they rolled their big yellow eyes and shifted uneasily, but a murmur from their mother calmed them.

When Sansa was close enough to reach out and brush the creamy-white hide of the closest dragon, she dragged her eyes with reluctance to Ramsay. He stood there, very still, his mad pale eyes still somehow haughty, arrogant, hateful.

"You've spent so much time trying to make yourself important and powerful," Sansa began. "What you did to Theon, what you did to— to me." She stumbled over the words, but pushed past it. "You killed your father, your stepmother… you set your dogs upon your newborn brother!"

Behind her, Daenerys sucked in a breath.

"In the end, it got you nowhere. Your men have deserted you. You have lost Winterfell. You will die with empty hands, despised and scorned. You'll receive no honored burial."

She stepped closer, heedless of the dragons' proximity now. "Your fate is to be shit, Ramsay," she hissed at him. "These dragons will eat you, and then they'll shit you out, and you will be forgotten."

"You will never forget me, Sansa," he said in that low, oily whisper of his. "You'll always remember me."

She just laughed at him.

"I won't have time," she replied, her tone breezy. "I'll be too busy with a husband who loves me. We will fill Winterfell with our children, and we will be happy." She swept him with a glance that was pure disdain. "And you'll still just be dragon shit."

She retreated to stand by Daenerys, who aimed an approving look her way. Sansa nodded at her, indicating it was time. Ramsay squared his shoulders and aimed a glare of loathing at them, but Sansa didn't feel anything but good.

"I'm going to enjoy this," Daenerys murmured, then called out, "Dracarys!"

The big black dragon nipped Ramsay between his dagger-like teeth, tossing him effortlessly up toward the clouds in a playful manner, quite high up. For a long, silent moment, he hung there, his scream of pain the only sound in a world where everyone held their breath.

Then all three beasts blew out great plumes of fire, engulfing his form. His scream grew louder, then abruptly ceased. His body hurtled toward the ground, but the green dragon reached out a long, scaly neck, and chomped a good quarter off him.

The white dragon huffed in displeasure and darted its face toward the charred, bleeding remains, but the black one took exception at that and roared in protest. They snipped at each other, and at Ramsay, until there was very little remaining of him.

"My loves, there is plenty more," cooed Daenerys. "No need to fight over this meager snack." She shot a dismissive glance at what was left of Ramsay— a foot, it looked like— and waved in the direction of the horse carcasses, freshly denuded of their tack. The dragons lumbered off toward their equine smorgasbord, and the women returned to the others.

"Thank you," Sansa whispered.

"It was my pleasure. If only all such men could be disposed of likewise."

They were close enough to be overheard, and Daenerys' comment was met by, again, a variety of reactions. Brienne had an expression of distress etched on her features. Davos was trying, with some success, to compose himself, which took the form of gazing down at his hands a lot. Edd, as always, just looked mournful. Tormund was in deep, quiet conversation with Tyrion about the dragons. There was a wild glint in his eyes that spoke of a desire to ride one. Or perhaps make love to one; no way to be sure, with him. Sansa was positive it would not end well. Jon still looked like a lightly stunned haddock.

And Sandor… Sandor just looked hungry. Starving, even. When Sansa realized it was for her— that he was famished to get his hands on her, now that they had won and Ramsay was dead and they were safe— she felt a blush rolling from deep within, until her face was cherry-red and her breath came faster.

Daenerys gave a delicate giggle at her side. "He seems a fine man. You are fortunate."

Sansa just beamed at him, giving a giggle of her own when a slow tide of red washed over his face. "I am. I really, really am."

Jon gave a discreet cough. "Might we discuss… things… inside? In private?" His glance around at the heaps of dead men and horses, the happily dining dragons, and the avid gaze of the survivors, was eloquent.

Brienne took that as her command to organize the remaining troops, and with great relief to be away, took off to do so, Tormund her shadow. Jon cocked an elbow out toward Daenerys, very awkwardly. If she noticed his discomfiture, she didn't show it, just curled her hand around his forearm and let him lead her into the castle, the rest trailing them like baby ducks.

Sansa went to Sandor. After a moment, he mimicked Jon's courtly gesture and offered her his own arm, which she took, tucking herself rather more closely against his side than was warranted, but she was in quite a fine mood and didn't mind sharing it with him.

"That was well done," he rasped.

"Don't you mean Ramsay was well-done? After the dragons roasted him?" She let out another, slightly hysterical giggle. He looked at her oddly. "I'm sorry. I'm just… it's been…" She slumped a little. "I think I'm a bit overwhelmed by it all."

Sandor studied her in silence for a long moment. "Snow," he called, "your sister needs some time to herself. We'll join you…" He looked to her for an answer.

"Later," she supplied.

"…later," he finished.

Jon nodded, and once inside the castle, Sandor and Sansa peeled from the group, going toward the wing with the bed chambers. He gave her a gentle push into hers, saying that he was going to have a wash and would join her.


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